


'til the wheels fall off!

by eddiewarrior



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Has ADHD, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Soft Boys, Sonia Kaspbrak’s A+ parenting, extreme fluff, kindergarten things, sonia and frank are mentioned, stan is mentioned, this is just fluff, went and maggie are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 14:03:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17664026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddiewarrior/pseuds/eddiewarrior
Summary: Richie Tozier is looking for a friend, and maybe, just maybe, he'll find one in little Eddie Kaspbrak.





	'til the wheels fall off!

Richie was _scanning_. That was a spelling word his teacher had taught him the other day. Richie might not have known how to spell it, but he knew what it meant. It meant to look for something or someone super carefully. Currently, Richie was scanning for a new friend or two, because his current best best, Stan, had gotten sick from a few kids in their kindergarten class. It was gross, he called Richie this morning and told him he had chicken pox. Someone once told Richie that one person got chicken pox from getting bit by a chicken and spread it to a bunch of people. Now Stan had it. Gross.

Anyways, Richie needs someone to play with. This isn’t his first day of kindergarten, he isn’t dumb, and he knows what happens to kids who sit alone at recess. They get sand kicked in their faces and they get pushed onto the concrete by the third graders. And that had happened to Richie plenty of times, even when he wasn’t alone, so he wasn’t risking it just because Stan wasn’t here. He had to find a friend quick.

He looked across the playground and saw a little girl playing with bugs. She seemed cool. Richie liked bugs, he knew at least every kind of beetle there was because for his fifth birthday his mom got him a big book of bugs and he had studied the beetle chapter. When he recited all the beetles his mother’s face had lit up in amusement and somewhat awe, and she praised him, saying, _“Good job, Richie!”_   That was Richie’s favorite thing to do. He loved making his parents proud of him.

His attention went back on the blonde girl when he watched in horror as she picked a bug up from the ground and put it in her mouth. Suddenly Richie did not think she was cool, nor did he really wanna be friends with a bug eater. Sometimes Richie ate pretty gross stuff like strawberries dipped in Cheese Wiz or bananas and hot sauce when his parents weren’t at home, but he would never eat an actual real live bug.

Richie’s gaze shifted and he adjusted his glasses. He knew Henry and his meanie friends were gonna come by any second. He ran across the playground and started walking towards the sandbox when he saw… a three year old sitting on the edge of the sandbox? The three year olds have their recess way earlier than kindergarten, what is this little baby doing on the playground? Richie was good with babies though, he has like two little cousins, so he could handle this. He’s gonna make sure this little kid goes right back to the class where he belongs. So Richie plops down beside the brown-haired toddler and goes, “Wasn’t preschool recess two hours ago?”

The smaller boy looks up at Richie with confusion in his large, brown doe eyes. “What are you talking about?” Richie squints at him. What is _he_ talking about?

“You’re in preschool, but this is kindergarten play time,” Richie says as if it is plainly obvious.

The short boy frowns. “I’m in kindergarten. Just like you,” He says defensively.

Richie laughs. “No way, shortie, you have to be like three.”

The other boy is not laughing. In fact he looks quite upset. “I’m six! My birthday was in November!” He huffs, his cheeks flushing with anger.

Oh. He’s older than Richie. Richie is only five, but his birthday is in seven weeks, he’s counting. He has 51 days until he’ll be six, but he’s not gonna tell some six year old baby that. So he decides to introduce himself. “The name is Richie Tozier, and you are?” He asks, turning his nose up and speaking in a posh British accent, doing what he called his Butler voice.

The quaint boy next to him smiles and crinkles up his little button nose “Why’re you talking like that? You sound funny,” He remarked.

“You think I’m funny?” Richie’s eyes lit up. He loved it when he made people laugh or smile, it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

“No, I said you sound funny, that doesn’t make you funny,” The boy responded matter-of-factly, blinking those large chocolate eyes.

Richie thought the boy was pretty adorable. He looked like a cute little baby and he seemed okay. Maybe he could be Richie’s new friend. “Hey, kid, what’s your name? I told you mine but you didn’t tell me yours.”

The boy grimaced slightly, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t call me kid. My name is Eddie.”

Richie laughed. He could think of at least fifty nicknames with that name. “Okay, Eddie Spaghetti!” He replied with the first rhyme that came to mind. Richie was good at coming up with rhyming nicknames. That’s how Stan became Stan the Man.

Eddie’s face dropped into an expressionless face. “Don’t. Ever. Call me that name ever.”

Richie laughed. Stan said stuff like that to him all the time too. But it’s whatever, because Stan was his best friend and nicknames are what you give to people you love. That’s something his dad taught him. So he gave Eddie this nickname to show him he wants to be his friend. But before he officially became his friend, he was gonna have to ask a few things about him first. “Do you like _Star Wars_?” Richie asked. This was a deal breaker. If Eddie didn’t like Star Wars, he would have to just find a new friend.

At this question Eddie’s eyes widened. Then he scooted a little closer to Richie and began to whisper. “Okay, you can’t tell anyone because my mommy said I couldn’t see _Star Wars_ , but my dad took me to see _The Empire Strikes Back_ and I think it’s my favorite movie ever. It was so cool I loved the part when they fought with the lightsabers and the spaceship went super fast and then there was a cool chase and—,” Eddie’s excited, speedy talking was abruptly interrupted with some slight wheezing coming from the smaller boy himself. Richie’s face dropped in horror for a second. Was Eddie gonna die? Cough up a slug or something?

 Eddie lifted his shirt up slightly, exposing some baby fat and a blue fanny pack with dinosaurs on it. He tucked his shirt behind the fanny pack and unzipped it. Richie watched as he put something blue in his mouth and took a deep breath before resuming his sentence. “And Luke Skywalker was so cool but Han Solo was even cooler and then my dad said Princess Leia was badass and I wish I could see the next movie,” Eddie pouted.

“Well, why can’t you? You said your dad took you to see Episode 5. Why can’t he just take you to see Episode 6 when it comes out?” Richie asked, as if it was plainly obvious.  This kid was kinda dumb…

Eddie looked down at his small hands. “My daddy died.”

Richie’s cheeks heated up and his mouth formed an _o_. “Oh…” He didn’t really know what to say, but he knew that people got really sad when people died. “Uh, well we’re friends now, so you can go with me to see it!” He offered, smiling at his new friend softly.

“That would be fun,” Eddie said, smiling back, showing one of his bottom teeth missing.

“So what’dya say Eds, are we pals or what?” Richie said, putting his arms around Eddie.

Eddie giggled softly before replying with, “I told you not to call me nicknames, Richie. But yeah, we can be friends,” He held his hand out to Richie.

Richie linked his pinkies with Eddie and thought of a promise to make. With Stan their friendship pinky promise was “Till death do us part,” even though Stan had protested saying that’s a promise for married people. But Richie didn’t care. He loved Stan and that was that. But what would his promise be for his friendship with Eddie?

“Hey, Eds…what are some of your favorite things?” Richie asked, hoping to get an idea of what their promise should be.

“Hmm… Well I like that shark movie and _Star Wars_ and I sort of like playing _CandyLand_ with my mommy and I like playing with racecars, they’re my favorite toy,” Eddie concluded, digging two Hot Wheels out of his fanny pack and putting a fiery green one in Richie’s hand, himself keeping the orange and blue car.

Richie held his pinky out, and Eddie gave him his. “We’re making a friendship promise, it’s gonna make sure we stay friends forever, no matter what.”

Eddie looked skeptical, but he kept his pinky linked with the bug-eyed boy’s.

Richie smiled at Eddie and said, “I, Richie Tozier, promise to be best friends with you ‘til the wheels fall off, Eddie Kaspbrak!”

Eddie only giggled. “What does that even mean Richie?”

Richie answered back, “It means we’re gonna be best friends forever ‘cause we aren't cars and there’s no wheels to fall off!”

Eddie laughed again before concluding the promise with, “I, Eddie Kaspbrak, promise to be best friends with you ‘til the wheels fall off, Richie Tozier!”

And from that moment on, the boys were never seen without one another.


End file.
